As the snow has fallen and then fallen again, and again, you may have seen one of the many advertisements the Sanitation department has posted in varied venues for citizens to come work as snow shoveling day laborers.
As far as qualifications, there are not save bringing 2 small photos of yourself, and official photo ID and a social security card to a sanitation garage. The rate of pay is ten and hour, unless you work more than forty hours in a given week and then it bumps to fifteen for the additional hours. The catch? None, just having a strong back.
However, its not that tough to speculate that one at a job they will have for a short time with little oversight, one might slack off. Teams of shovellers have been walking The Bronx, dropped off in specific municipal locations where sidewalks are iced or snow is still obstructing the road and picked up later.
We are not accusing the Department of Sanitation of not monitoring its workers. Because there is not feasible way to monitor round the clock the thousands of new Sanitation employees who have just been hired in the past few days, many who will only work for a day or two, receive a pay check in a few weeks and be done with their civic duty.
What we are saying is that it is incredibly easy when not supervised to work a little less hard, or not at all. This reporter has seen within the past hour the same crew of four individuals in their early twenties in two locations not working. In truth, two of the four were working when first spotted on Pelham Parkway and Eastchester Road at approximately 4 p.m. on Saturday, while the others were on the bench. However, when all four sat for a while behind me at the McDonalds on Eastchester Road where I am currently writing this, I decided to write about this. No, you won’t see the photo I decided not to take of the young workers, because in truth, they may have put in one hard day of work and were taking a break that was authorized.
However, let us also remember how much money our city must spend when there are emergencies so that we do not wind up like Atlanta last week. And that when you hire workers with no qualifications and offer no supervision, its not a hard leap to make that some folks are going to slack off. If you see something, say something, as they say. But be nice. Because as hard as you work, if you were put in the same situation, might you take a few too long breaks?
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